At least a year ago, but maybe two, our washing machine decided to die. This meant that we could get a nice new fancy washing machine, which I was apparently overly excited about and Vanessa could not care less. But this post is not about the fancy washing machine we bought, but what I did with the old one. We didn't throw the old one out right away as I said I was going to use it to make a few things. One of them being the fire pit that gave this post its name.
After letting the machine sit in our garden for far too long I finally go around to pulling the machine apart to make a fire pit from the drum.
This initial stage was fun. I basically took it apart nicely, removing the bolts and screws and keeping it all in good order. Then I remembered that I didn't need the outside and so when something didn't quite come apart nicely, I hit it rather hard with a sledge hammer until it all bent enough to remove the drum and its casing.
After I had the drum and the casing out I had to remove the casing. This included the concrete that they add to balance the drum. I can recommend from experience that you do not let these fall on your toe after removing the bolts. This casing came off pretty easily, there are just lots of bolts so it takes a while.
The last stage of the disassembly was to remove wheel from the base of the drum. I tried a drill and with wrenches and I scraped more than just a little skin off my knuckles. Then I decided I was going to stop wasting time and just got the angle grinder to take it off.
Finally the drum was ready to set up. I put it up on a few bricks to let the air flow under it, threw some wood in it and lit the thing. It works great and has allowed for a few nice outdoor occasions this winter, including the outdoor fondu from the title image. That was until we had an avalanche off our roof that covered the firepit and destroyed everything else. It has been recovered now and will be revived again once we have a new roof out the back.